When you create a course, and you’ve put the work into making it the best freakin’ course you’ve ever made, you want nothing more than to have as many people take it as possible. Not making your course ADA compliant is doing nothing more than limiting the number of viewers you’re going to get.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was put into place in 1990 and changed the way disabilities are viewed and dealt with in the workplace, in government activities, in public, with transportation, and in telecommunications. No longer could you lose your job because of a disability. Public locations had to become wheelchair accessible, and TTY devices had to be provided for the deaf.

Title IV of the ADA outlines the requirements for telephone and television access for the impaired. Closed Captioning as a mainstream requirement was born. So if your course doesn’t offer closed captioning, you’re currently 26 years overdue, and at risk of being viewed as discriminatory toward the hearing impaired.

You can view the ADA guide as provided by the U.S. Department of Justice here. If you are looking for an outline of the law that is not in legalese, feel free to browse this site for a more simplified text.

In the video below, I’ll walk you through how to easily create closed captioning in Camtasia 9, and I’ll discuss some of the bugs I have found in doing so.